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Messages that Motivate

If you saw an image of yourself as an older person would you change your behavior and start saving more for your retirement now? A research study was done showing people an age-morphed photo of themselves at a retirement age, 65. The study found that when individuals were presented with an older version of their likeness their attitudes change.  After seeing an older image of themselves, they were more likely to put a savings plan in place today for tomorrow’s retirement.  This potential change in behavior is pretty powerful.  So, what makes this work?  How could this type of effect be used in a learning environment? Breaking apart the experiment. What makes these altered photos…

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The Future of Books

ebook

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo. What will books of the future look like?  How will we store them?  Will there still be libraries?  How “social” will books become?  As an avid reader these are a few questions I have pondered.  IDEO has provided a great visualization of books of the future. Three eReader prototypes: The Debate and Opinion eReader: Here an informational layer(s) is envisioned to future books that feature ongoing discussions, fact check and current media links as well as historical debate time lines and visualization of the arguments.  This type of reader would be a great support of developing critical thinking skills. Professional Development eReader, supporting learning in the…

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Summer Reading: The Participatory Museum

I picked up Nina Simon’s delightful book “The Participatory Museum” as something different.  Nina’s work focuses on Museums, not corporate learning or learning in school environments.  However, the mission of many museums is at least partially to support learning. Design Overlaps There were places though out the book where best practices in participatory design for museums mirrored best practices for designing on-line learning environments. Notice how the following two quotes parallel each other. “There are two counter-intuitive design principles at the heart of successful participatory projects.  First, participants thrive on constraints, not open-ended opportunities for self-expression.  And second, to collaborate confidently with strangers, participants need to engage through personal, social, entry points.  These design principles…

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Business Book Club – First Discussion

People want to know the work they do is meaningful. People want to be empowered to fix the problems they encounter at work. Never underestimate the power of personally connecting with people (your employees and peers). These were a few of the insights I gleaned from the Business Book Club (BBC) discussion.  For our first book we read “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson.  The book uses a metaphor, mice and little people in a maze, to represent different perspectives people take towards change.  Because the metaphor is fairly open, it enables readers to see different things in the book.  This made the book work well as an introductory book for our group. Many…

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Career

Learning Doodle – Career

small 2010 career learnings

Well, it finally happened.  I accepted a new position in the company.  I’m both excited and apprehensive.  Pretty normal reactions.  Before I started I spent some time reflecting the last year and a half of career learnings.  I decided on a doodle format as something a little different.  I hope it translates well.                               Related Your Best Piece of Career Advice

Instructional Message Design

Current Economic Crisis – Explanations

I like this visual explanation of the current market crisis. I’m just looking at the presentation value here. Simple diagrams, sparse (but sufficient) wording, timeline feature up top of screen to communicate progression of situation. I think it works quite well. Some humor in the end. Creditcrisis 30slides Final View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: capitalism mortgage) Another visual explanation in the form of interesting flow chart / story. I like the “meanwhile” transition to move this piece along. The by far best (accessible) explanation of the crisis I heard from the Planet Money team. The podcast dealing with the issue (The Giant Pool of Money) now costs $ .95. But, it is…

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Slide:ology

Note to Reader: I’m really really tired as I write this. I made a Duarte inspired stick figure of myself before sitting down to write. It had crazy googley eyes and a hunched back. Between the computer crash – wipe out – reload last week and FTP connection issues this week, not to mention the stock market crash at work and Sofia’s issues…I’m a little on edge. These factors have encouraged me to be a minimilist about this week’s readings (ch. 6-10). Prominence – if everything is equal, nothing attracts attention – Prominence sets visual relationship. Lots of ways to establish prominience, size, proximity, color…. Grids – ah, ha…grids come in 4 coloumn, 5 column…

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Context and Meaning

“Computers and Google can indeed give us the routine information and facts that we need. What we want from people who stand before us (or, on line) and give a talk is to give us that which data and information alone cannot: meaning. Remember we are living in a time where fundamental human talents are in great demand….. What we yearn for is to listen to an intelligent and evocative – perhaps at times even provocative – human being who teaches us, or inspires us, or who stimulates us with knowledge plus meaning, context, and emotion in a way that is memorable.” -Garr Reynolds “Make Presentations That People Will Remember” Presentation Zen – Reynold’s Blog…

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Pecha Kucha

I’m forcing myself to reflect on the Pecha Kucha I attended here in Denver. Fun. Entertaining. At times thought provoking. Community-ish. Sharing. Does sharing always make for community? Community of the moment versus longer sustained community. I was glad to have my husband’s company. I was surprised that there wasn’t more intimate types of sharing. For example, most of the presentations were around someone’s work. Granted work is personal, but work projects aren’t always so personal. Not that I want people baring their souls to strangers. I think I was searching for meaningful. There was the married couple who found meaning their work as fabric designer, family unit and ultimately community builders. This in contrast…

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